[Avodah] Mitzvah Kiyumit

[Akiva Miller via Avodah]

R' Micha Berger identified a category that Rav Dovid Lishtitz called
"mitzvos matirim", which includes shechita, tzitzis, matzah and sukkah
after the first night, gittin, and others.

He also gave a group of mitzvos which "carries no bitul asei if you omit
it. Tzedaqah (in most cases), tefillin, some claim yishuv EY bizman hazeh,
etc..." (I've started another thread for discussing whether tefillin really
"carries no bitul asei", but for now, for illustrative purposes, let's not
quibble over that.)

RMB wrote that "for tefillin, like tzedaqah, I was thinking of a case of
going beyond the shiur", meaning that until one has done the minimum shiur
(a minimum amount of tzedaka, tefillin once, children twice, bris milah
once), the mitzvah is chiyuvis, and if one does the mitzvah after that it
is kiyumis. (Doing bris milah beyond the shiur is not possible in practice,
but I don't think that should exclude it from this category.)

It seems to me that these can be divided into two categories: Minimum shiur
and change of situation. Having children has a minimum shiur, and once one
has reached that shiur, there is no longer any bitul asei though the kiyum
aseh remains. Bris milah and pidyon haben involve a change of status
(whether physical, metaphysical, or whatever); it's not that one has
reached the shiur, but rather the status is changed and it is simply not
possible to do the mitzvah again.

On the other hand, as R' Daniel M. Israel posted, if one's children die
chas v'shalom, he has fallen back into a done-less-than-the-shiur status,
and so the chiyuv returns despite the fact that the typical person is
"yotzay now, yotzay forever." And status can be reversed too: getting
married is once-in-a-lifetime for most people, but the widower and divorcee
get the chiyuv again.

I'd like to suggest these four distinct categories:

A) Mitzvos matirim: There's really no chiyuv at all, unless you want to
accomplish a certain goal, in which case you *must* do this. (shechita,
tzitzis, kisui hadam, tevila, divorce, maakeh)

B) Change of situation: Similar to above, except that it is not optional at
all, and then once the goal is accomplished, the results are permanent.
(milah, pidyon haben) This sort of mitzvah *can* be done a second time,
*if* the situation does get undone somehow. (biur chametz, marriage) But it
is never really a mitzvah kiyumis, only a chiyuv that left and returned.

C) Shiur: A certain minimum is required, but one can keep on doing it as a
mitzvah kiyumis. (tzedaka [see YD 249:2], having children; I think that
matzah and sukkah might be in this category on the first night after one
has eaten his kezayis, but I'm not sure.)

D) Truly voluntary: Doing things in the sukkah other than sleeping and
seudas keva. I imagine there are some optional korbanos in this category,
but I'm not knowledgable enough to be sure.

I'm sure others will come up with other distinctions and sub-categories,
and will come up with ingenious situations to analyze and clarify these
issues. Here's one that I touched on above:

I'd like to put marriage (for men) in the "change of situation" category. A
single man has a chiyuv to get married. When his status changes to that of
a married man, he no longer has the chiyuv, and although he is allowed to
marry another, it is not a chiyuv, and I suspect it is not even a mitzvah
kiyumis. One might argue that it is in the "mitzvos matirim" category, but
I'm not sure. He's not allowed to have relations with that second woman
unless he performs kiddushin and nisuin, but in this situation, are they
actual mitzvos or mere procedures? In other words: If a man is already
married, is it a mitzvah to marry another?

Akiva Miller
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